Greetings dVerse Poets and welcome to Open Link Night! This is Kim, Writing in North Norfolk, your host for the next couple of days.

The strangest thing about lockdown has been seeing only a handful of real people over the course of six weeks, otherwise people and relationships have become virtual: on video messaging, TV, the Internet, in novels and poems. The radio still plays a huge role in my life, especially BBC Radio 4, but it only requires one of my senses: listening.

Listening is important. It allows us to demonstrate that we are paying attention to the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of other people, to empathise, and to maintain relationships. Listening gives us pleasure, especially when listening to the sounds of nature: the sea, wind, birdsong, the voice of a loved one, or music. And then, of course, we listen to the internalised voices of poets as we read their words. If we’re lucky, we get to listen to the poets themselves.

I found a poem by Jonathan Drane, entitled ‘The Art of Listening’.

If you missed it, the prompt word for last Monday’s quadrille was a familiar sound: ‘flush’ and, on the following Tuesday, the sounds for Poetics were from animal companions.

If you’re a newcomer here, Open Link Night is when you choose any ONE poem of yours to share, or a poem for which you missed the Mr Linky deadline during the week – or even the week before. There is no prompt and there are no specific instructions to follow. Enjoy your time here and pay your fellow pub-goers a visit as everyone makes the rounds of reading and sharing. Here is how you link your poem:

• Write a poem on your blog.
• Enter a link directly to your one poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below and remember to check the little box to accept the use/privacy policy.
• You will find links to other poets and more will join during the next 48 hours.
• Read and comment on other poets’ work.  We all come here to have our poems read.
• Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog.
• Comment and participate in our discussion below, if you like. We are a friendly bunch of poets, and we are listening!